Liam Barr

A friend keeps at something that's hurting them.
You want them to stop.

You wouldn't call them weak.
You'd tell them what you've watched it do.

That lands. Nothing else does.

Then it's your own habit
and the voice changes.

Disgust. A verdict. The same lecture as last time.

That voice has been running for years.
The habit is still here.

Shame was never persuasive.
Not on anyone. Not on you.

The lecture has had its turn.
The kinder voice still works.

There's news coming.
You don't know which way it goes.

Your shoulders are up near your ears.
They've been there since you heard.
You read the same paragraph three times.

Nothing has happened yet.
The flinch got here first.

Then it arrives and it's fine.
Or it isn't and you meet it already sore.

Either way you took it twice.
It only ever came once.

The news gets one hit.
The rest of it has been you.

An afternoon is enough to look like a different person.
The look lands before dinner.

The haircut. The setup.
The new way of describing yourself.
Everyone can see it.

The work underneath doesn't look like anything.
It takes months.
No one is in the room for any of it.

The look is always there for the taking.
It gets noticed and it asks almost nothing of you.

But it was finished the day it started.
Nothing about you moved.

The look was for them.
The work is the part that changes you.